Anita,
So sorry for not getting back sooner, i haven’t been getting any notifications and i didn’t notice a second page, i guess it was a cliffhanger, huh! 😉

Of course, I have questions. First: In the third paragraph above, you wrote: “strong inner/ outer circle that the two are divided by an ocean..acting slightly differently in each one, so deep in my mind that the divide will never be bridged”

Can you explain the above, I don’t understand…?

The circles come from sociology, anthropology and sociolinguistics, in many instances, cultures and languages reflect the relationships people have with one another. These circles are like communities, sometimes these communities meet each other; at events etc. Sometimes, friends of friends know family members so the communities interact with one another. Generally we have a lot of communities, the ‘work community’ the ‘school community’ etc. In my case, maybe my inner circle is concerned with family and few others. Whilst The outer circle reflects everyone else, workers to strangers, people i attend university with etc. I don’t have numerous circles, maybe just two.

In regards to ‘not being able to bridge the divide’ i mean that my ‘communities’ never meet nor mix. My deepest and closest friends live in other countries, so they never mix with one another nor the people i know here. My outer circle/ community is everyone else. I think as stated earlier, i am content, but also because generally i feel people in the outer until they ‘prove’ themselves to me then i can’t really see them being accepted into my inner community. I always felt bad because i thought at a time i was too judgmental. But it was Seneca that stated “When friendship is settled, you must trust; before friendship is formed, you must pass judgment.” I guess the people in the outer haven’t given me reason to ‘trust’ them, and let them into the inner. Also i think it has a lot to do with me measuring the company i keep now vs. everyone else. My family and close knit friendships weren’t built overnight nor maintained sparingly. Does this make sense?

My serious face… No idea! When i was younger, i was rounder, i was like a snowman! Whereas now, my body has grown up, i have very wide shoulders, big arms, a beard and short hair. Maybe it’s the genes? My father has a very serious look about him. If you didn’t know him like i do, you would suspect he is dis-interested in anything you say. Even now, i smile more (but mum said i look extremely creepy when i do :)), i try to relax my facial expressions. So i’m unsure of when i got ‘serious’, but it has been something people have commented on.
I will check regularly to make sure i don’t miss you correspondence
Matty

I have a hard time connecting with people my own age and I actually tend to make friends with older people.

I know what you mean. Maybe it’s because our generation and the coming one are better at texting rather than face to face interactions. Also in my experience older people tend to have been through all the awkward silences and ‘what do you do for a living’ questions a million times before.

Anyways I think we were born in the wrong generation? Who knows?

Sometimes i reckon i should of been in the 70s or 80s, because that’s the only music i listen to!

As Anita mentioned to me ages ago, you might not be connecting with anyone because you already connect on a deep level with family and a select few. I guess, in my case, i thought that i was deficient because i couldn’t make friends like others could, but i guess i’m wired differently and prefer smaller, deeper relationships. I think apart of the reason has to do with our societies understanding of being alone vs. being lonely. After these posts, i have embraced what i have, instead of dwelling of what i don’t have. After all, who say’s more is better?
Matty

Hi Anita,

Thanks for getting back. There are three people in my life that i call friend, i would say they are in my inner circle. I truly care about them, even if we only talk once a month or so, they know who i am. They understand me and they see me the way i always wanted to be seen as. Maybe that’s my criteria, maybe i trust someone when they’re on the same page as me? I’m not quite sure. I guess it’s just a feeling, someone you feel completely comfortable around.

don’t seem to have much of a need for a romantic partner

As i have said to my parents, i would never say never, in fact i am interested in dating and meeting girls. It’s just not exactly a priority in my life at the moment. I still feel that i’m trying to figure who i am. I mean, how can i embrace another, if i’m still learning to embrace myself? If i meet a girl i like, than anything is possible. I would say though, i’m not the kind of guy that will date anyone for the sake of dating. And i don’t think i’m waiting for the ‘right’ one. I guess i haven’t met any women that i has sparked my interests. I’m attracted to a great range of women, so it could be the environment i’m surrounded by. I’m afterall in quite a young environment, maybe i will meet someone when i go traveling or study abroad? I don’t know, it’s kind of exciting not knowing, in a way.

had a … rebellious time in your life, teenage years maybe, where you challenged who your parents were?

Never. 🙂 I think the closest i ever got to annoying my parents was when i though everything was a joke. When I was 15-16 i was trying to be a comedian (figuratively) and always try to make them laugh. Apart from that, i never rebelled. My mother grew up in a small farming town. She was THE rebel, especially considering the stories her father used to tell me, along with her siblings. So if i ever rebelled, i’m pretty sure it was nothing compared to Mum’s. She would smoke, go out and stay out for a weekend drinking. If i ever did rebel, she probably would of thought it funny 😉 There was a time (final years of school) that i had teenage angst, angry at the world, society and the government. But after high school i realized i was truly just angry at myself, i felt that my shortcomings were greater than my strengths, which was false. I have mentioned that i was different, right 😉 Even though i was doing a trade while i attended school, i was focused solely on my education and work. I guess it never occurred to me to rebel against anyone. When my brother came of age, he rebelled, and it was a tough 5-6 years. When i saw him do that or go through that period in his life, i don’t know, i guess i was happy i never went through that stage of my life.
I have always respected my parents and loved them unconditionally. My parents provided my brother and I with a lot of freedom, we could say what we wanted in the house, we were to be honest at all times. Because of this, i respect my parents. As a parent, i assume you never truly know what you do right now and how it will impact your child in the future. I do bump heads with my father quite a lot, i think it’s more to do with that we are similar but have different approaches to the same problem (i.e cooking dinner 🙂 But as i have gotten older, i have grown to understand my father more and more.

Please understand, Matty, I do not argue with content.

No problem, i am very open. You can ask me anything you want, that’s not a problem. No one has ever asked me questions like you are, it’s a liberating feeling.

I will wait for our next correspondence,
Matty
Have a good one Anita 🙂

Anita,

I wonder if this is why your face looks so serious? Because being funny and telling jokes or however you tried to make them laugh was annoying to them, was frowned by them? Maybe this is why you took on the serious look, so to be a dutiful son?

I don’t think this is the reason. My parents were more “why does everything have to be funny, your doing my head in”. This was their common reaction. They weren’t against me being funny, more that i just wasn’t good at making jokes. Apparently now i’m a natural! 🙂 I knew i was annoying them. I don’t think i ended up becoming serious because of this. I remember talking to mum about my connection issues with others back when i was in school. And her response was that i tended to be way more mature for my age, then other teenagers. So maybe it’s not so much that i’m serious, but other people perceive my maturity as a sign of seriousness.

Maybe i have one of those faces. You know, some people ‘can’t be taken seriously’ because of their attitude or the way they dress. I could simply be the opposite, ‘i’m taken too seriously’?? Anita, you described me on point before. It could be simply people’s perceptions. Either way, it no longer matters to me whether i think i’m serious or others do. I know i have people that care and understand me as I am. That’s my than enough. If i asked for more, it would be just selfish, IMO.

Matty

Anita,

Your brother, is he older? How did your mother react to his years of rebellion?

No, he is younger. He is 22 this year. Three years difference. He works in television and is extremely successful. He rents a house out about 20 mins away from us. My mother and the rest of us are still just ‘reacting’ to my brother. He has issues, serious ones. We suspected ages ago that he might be bipolar. Especially considering there is a family history of it on the my fathers side. My brother depressed us all at one point or another. One week he would be ‘how you been man? hows work?” other times he would just swear at you and in the end i would have to ask him to leave. I never had trouble with him until i graduated school (we were in the same homeroom, always walking past each other), then he just became…. well an arse. And that’s a nice way of putting it.

He didn’t really respect any of us. He would make you feel like nothing. He was always right. He is the type of person who knows everything but truly understands nor values nothing. He would always comment how everyone else was always more fun, nicer people than we were. In fact a couple of weeks ago he stated he had met some girls parents and they were the nicest people he had ever met. Mum’s used to it now, but i hate it. My brother isn’t and emotional person. As a kid he never cried, i remember watching the Lion King for the first time, i never stopped crying. My brother never did.

What scares me the most is that i know one day he will regret his behavior. But i fear by then, it will be too late to talk to anyone. At times i felt he manipulated my emotions. I had to learn to calm myself and learn to walk away. Because of his job, it’s quite stressful. So whenever he comes home it’s just negativity and attitude. I guess he is just taking it out on us.

He is especially condescending to mum. Which is just wrong, since she has always been the one to extend the olive branch. When my brother ended up with a girlfriend, he was only 18, she was 17. We were all concerned that he was too young, not to be in a relationship, but to move in with each other. It was like they were pretending to play ‘house’. I met her a couple of times, and she was incredibly shy, controlling and showed no emotion. And since my brother struggled with emotions, it just didn’t seem like a fit. I have always been led to believe, with mum and dad as examples, that opposites attract. Seriously, i started to get concerned that he had just replaced mum with a younger version. One time, at the dinner table, she was berating him in front of us for eating too much bread.If my brother wasn’t messed up before, he was now. He made my mum apologize to her because mum had apparently been ‘too sarcastic’ in her own house! It was about how she was asking her about her future and where my brother would fit into it. She felt that we all hated her and insisted on coming over more regularly so that we would like her. But she would never speak to us, just go straight into his room. He tried to make me apologize as well once. I refused to. After meeting her a couple of times, (she never said anything to me, we honestly had nothing in common, and my brother was a bridge builder himself) i remarked to him that she had as much personality as a brick wall. Obviously i shouldn’t of said this to him. But it was the truth, i tried to engage her, but she wasn’t interested.

Anyway the relationship didn’t last. He didn’t love her, he told us that. He liked the physical side of the relationship more. And so did she. Actually, to me it sounded as if they were trying for two years to make sex a relationship builder. I think this has scared my brother quite a bit. During the aftermath he told us a lot of details, mainly related to emotional abuse. My brother has been in some relationships now, but he is emotional scared. He accepts that he has issues that he should deal with, but he won’t open up to us, and has no interest in seeking help. I think he feels just accepting he has things to work out, is enough for him, instead of perhaps taking action.

The fact i have written so much about my brother is probably not a good sign of our relationship. But i truly believe he can do anything he wants. Even through the bad times, i still love him, he is my blood. I will still be here to support him whenever he needs it. Even if it hurts. I wish i could say he would do the same, but he won’t.

Matty

Anita,

Regarding the “incredible shy” – how was the ex girlfriend shy? How did her shyness express itself?

For instance, if she was sitting at the table, she would sit there as if a scolded child. Or trying to make herself seem smaller, hunched shoulders, head down all the time. She would just look down at her feet. Mum always tried talking to her, bringing up all subjects from university to the weather, she tried harder than all of us. It’s hard to find something to talk about when she seemingly didn’t say anything. My brother was not good at bridging our family and his GF together; this for example “Oh did you guys know that XXXX is into the guitar” never happened. When his ex-gf would come into the house, she never said hello to anyone, she would just walk straight into my brothers room. Right in front of everyone. If she wanted something, she would ask my brother for it. I used to have a stack of comics books and my brother came into my room and asked whether i had any recommendations for his GF….she was sitting across the hall! And yet she told my brother that we all hated her! I think at various points we tried. I think if anything we were just indifferent to her.

Was or is your mother controlling? Showing no emotion? Did she berate your brother, or you… or your dad as well

In my mind my mother isn’t controlling and never has been. Although i could just be bias. Heck i think i have incredible amounts of freedom. Mum is very emotional woman too. My father side of the family struggle with emotions. Which is where my brother gets it. Although me and dad have similar values and morals, my brother is physically a spiting image of dad and thinks like he does. I’m more like mum in regards to how i think. Mum wears her heart on her sleeve. Mum has never berated me or anyone.

“As a younger version”, i don’t mean physically or mentally like my mother, but my brothers ex treated him like he was a child. That’s what i mean. Mum noticed this first, she was depressed about it, because she felt as if she had done a bad job raising my brother and as such needed a new mother in his life. This is always a moot point that my mother struggles with daily. My mum has had to deal with a lot, during this time, my father wasn’t in the best health (he an be quite pessimistic at times), mum’s dad (granddad) had terminal cancer and was staying with us until…well until the inevitable came. My brother was doing all this with his ex-gf and mum was concerned about me and my future. Whether i would go to uni, meet a girl etc. Things only parents worry about. It got mum down a lot. She developed anxiety and depression, shortly after and had to take pills that messed with her head. She is a lot better, mentally, nowadays, and doesn’t need the pills. Although she has other issues of diverticulitis (bowel and intestine problems) she is fine. She has just accepted everything as it is. That’s all she could do. She couldn’t and still doesn’t understand how she could raise two children the same way and end up with completely different results. I always tell her its not her fault, my brother decided to go his own course for whatever reason. I will never understand why we are different, i can remember as kids that we always hung out, even in school. it was as if somewhere along the line something changed him, like he became a drastically different person.

Matty

• This reply was modified 8 years, 9 months ago by Matty.